Ride Sharing Service Grab is Messing up the World's Largest Mapping Community's Data in Southeast Asia (techcrunch.com) 47
Remote teams incorrectly overwrote data developed by volunteer mappers in Thailand. TechCrunch reports: Grab, Southeast Asia's top ride-hailing company, has hit a roadblock in its efforts to improve its mapping and routing service after running into trouble with OpenStreetMap, the world's largest collaborative mapping community, through a series of blundering edits in Thailand. Grab, which gobbled up Uber's local business in exchange for an equity swap earlier this year, has busily added details and upgraded the maps it uses across its eight markets in Southeast Asia. Accurate maps are, of course, essential to a smooth ride-hailing experience for Grab's 125 million registered users. Without accurate location details, ensuring that drivers and passengers can easily rendezvous becomes nearly impossible.
Grab's effort to improve the never-ending quest of more accurate maps involves a multi-input approach that uses Google Maps as the base with Grab adding in its own information -- "points of interest" cultivated through customer feedback and groundwork -- and other public or licensed information. However, what appears to be a focus on speed has seen it suspend all activities in Thailand -- Southeast Asia's second-largest economy -- after it was found to have overwritten data developed by OpenStreetMap (OSM) with inaccurate edits that were created by a remote team based in India. Established in 2006, OSM's mission is to "make the best map data set of the world" and it makes its data, which is developed by more than two million volunteers from across the world, available for use without charge.
An India-based team from GlobalLogic, an outsourced software firm contracted by Grab, made dozens of edits in recent months that overwrote information created by OSM members, who voluntarily map streets by visiting them in person. Grab suspended work in Thailand by the GlobalLogic team after OSM members complained about numerous incorrect edits in OSM forum posts. Unlike the hobbyist mappers who collect data in person, the Grab contractors used satellite imagery to "correct" local map details in Thailand which, in fast-changing cities like Bangkok, meant that their work was incorrect because it relied on out-of-date sources.
Grab's effort to improve the never-ending quest of more accurate maps involves a multi-input approach that uses Google Maps as the base with Grab adding in its own information -- "points of interest" cultivated through customer feedback and groundwork -- and other public or licensed information. However, what appears to be a focus on speed has seen it suspend all activities in Thailand -- Southeast Asia's second-largest economy -- after it was found to have overwritten data developed by OpenStreetMap (OSM) with inaccurate edits that were created by a remote team based in India. Established in 2006, OSM's mission is to "make the best map data set of the world" and it makes its data, which is developed by more than two million volunteers from across the world, available for use without charge.
An India-based team from GlobalLogic, an outsourced software firm contracted by Grab, made dozens of edits in recent months that overwrote information created by OSM members, who voluntarily map streets by visiting them in person. Grab suspended work in Thailand by the GlobalLogic team after OSM members complained about numerous incorrect edits in OSM forum posts. Unlike the hobbyist mappers who collect data in person, the Grab contractors used satellite imagery to "correct" local map details in Thailand which, in fast-changing cities like Bangkok, meant that their work was incorrect because it relied on out-of-date sources.
Long winded (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok the last paragraph is all we needed. Team of people on India edited maps based on satellite imagery, overwriting data entered by people "on the ground".
I guess they didn't hear about SCM?
Shake off ethnic bias (Score:5, Informative)
Indochimps gonna Indochimp
And the bigots gonna big, big, big, big, big
Baby I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
Shake it off, shake it off
So here's my brief summary for this story:
1. Grab hires GlobalLogic to improve OpenStreetMap's data set in several countries
2. GlobalLogic relies on outdated satellite imagery and ends up royally messing up OSM's map of Thailand
3. OSM regulars discover the damage
4. Grab tells GlobalLogic to take a break from mapping Thailand while starting conversation with OSM regulars in Thailand to figure out the right way to proceed
Yeh that's basically it (Score:3, Insightful)
There are 5 new underpasses next to my homes here, and none of the satellite imagery shows them. So if you're using satellite images to fix up the road network, you're messing it up.
Agree with tepples, this has nothing to do with racial bias and more to do with outsourcing to a remote company.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's my take on it:
1. Outsourced Indian consultancy hired.
2. Turns out they're useless
3. Gets stopped after damage is done.
Exactly the same thing happened to businesses all across the world seeking ever cheaper work.
Grab (Score:3, Funny)
The name itself must violate somebody's code of conduct.
Remote team based in India... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maps in Thailand suck and don't match up (Score:5, Interesting)
The general state of ordering anything like grab, mcdonalds etc in Thailand is pretty shitty as far as addresses go.
McDonalds for example has a thing on their website where you can in fact put your location on a map - the only problem is that once you do geocoding on the location and then locate that again on the map it's usually 1-10 kilometers away from the place you chose and the system does _not_ retain the original submitted gps coordinates which would make everything super simple.
foodpanda is the same way and it sucks, you can only choose an address on the map that automatically geocodes into something. this makes half the addresses unchoosable. you can write whatever you want though, as long as it resolves to _some_ location. it's not going to be the location you're at though so once again, they will call you where the place is.
So what they do pretty much always is call you for instructions. those instructions then get saved on the system.
but it is really rare just generally that you have an address line and you can look that up on the map and that it would show you where that place actually is on the map.
the roads are usually marked positionally allright, but they're either unnamed or with straight up wrong names. city names are reused quite a lot even inside same province - and the names on say nokia maps and google maps show can be entirely different or if not entirely different then at least usually written differently as there is apparently no official listing of city names into western characters - so a city can have the name written one way on the west side entrance of the city and slightly differently on the east side entrance - apparently this also extends somewhat into writing them in thai characters as well. Imagine extreme engrish and that's what you get.
anyways, maps are pretty horrible, but you can navigate with them somewhat. the bigger problem is looking up an address on a map which is just plain impossible for most addresses - sure you can get a general idea around where the address might be, but that's if you're not unlucky and theres a matching placename 100km away in the same province and the address line didn't include extra qualifiers to tell the two apart.
Re:Maps in Thailand suck and don't match up (Score:5, Interesting)
there is apparently no official listing of city names into western characters
This issue is common to the entire Thai language, not only street names. There is no standard system for romanizing Thai script. The Thai language uses many vowels and consonants that do not exist in western languages, and it's a tonal language where meaning is altered by tone.
When working in Bangkok, I noticed that street names are often obviously written by non-Thai speakers. A good example is the 'Rasan' area in Bangkok, Sukumvit 105. [goo.gl]. Every street sign in the area is written 'La Salle' not 'Rasan'.
The thai script for 'La Salle' ends in the 'L' character [thai-language.com] but in Thai script 'L' is pronounced 'N' at the end of a word.
To a native Thai speaker that mistake is basic and immediately obvious; and confusing 'Rasan' with 'La Salle' would never be made. Just one of many, many examples I noticed in Bangkok.
So it doesn't surprise me that Indian workers, who already speak English as a second language, are unable to establish correct street names there.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps, in this situation, geographical coordinates would be best? Like, if your latitude/longitude is 13.7315/100.5423, you report your location as "7315-5423". Easy to determine (GPS), easy enough to remember, and unambiguously identifies your location to within 10 meters, which is enough for almost all purposes.
Re: Maps in Thailand suck and don't match up (Score:2)
No, the solution is what3words.com
Gives every 3x3m plot on earth a unique combination of words.
Re: (Score:2)
That is clever, but harder for non-English speakers.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really:
> what3words is currently available in 26 languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, German, Turkish, Swedish, Italian, Mongolian, Arabic, Finnish, Polish, Danish, Norwegian, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Greek, Dutch, Czech, Afrikaans, Bahasa Indonesia, Japanese, Korean, and Thai.
> We are working on many more including Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese (simplified and traditional characters), Urdu and a number of Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, and Marathi.
> 3 word addres
Colossal Adventure (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Colossal Adventure :) (Score:3, Informative)
No, no. You are in a maze of little twisty passages, all alike ...
Not ride sharing (Score:2)
You don't need new maps to go where you were already going, and if you take people somewhere else, it is nothing to do with ride-sharing, but is a just gypsy taxi service